Something Wicked

by Third Cousins

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Discover More Books By Third Cousins

  A Synopsis & Table Of Contents...

  Inspiring Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Copyright

  Twisted

  Something Wicked

  Book 2

  Coming Of Age Romance

  By: Danica Reid & Third Cousins

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  A SYNOPSIS & TABLE OF CONTENTS...

  All Jason wants to do is make sure that Sophie is okay. He knows that she’s been pushed to her breaking point and he doesn’t want her to be alone while she finds a way to fix herself. Things get complicated, though, when his girlfriend shows up. Jessica is jealous and possessive. It quickly becomes clear that he can’t have both of them in his life. He makes a choice and goes through with it, but when tragedy strikes, will he find himself on his own?

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Discover More Books By Third Cousins

  A Synopsis & Table Of Contents...

  Inspiring Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  DISCOVER MORE BOOKS BY THIRD COUSINS

  Copyright

  INSPIRING WORDS

  “Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.”

  - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  CHAPTER 1

  I’d promise her that I wouldn’t tell. I’d promised her that her self-made secrets were hers to keep, because they were. What business did I have, telling people about what had happened to her parents? What business did I have, talking about what had happened at the edge of the cliff?

  The sun had come out the next morning with such intensity that all of the rain which had fallen had dried away. I looked out of the window at the green leafy trees and sandy-colored footpaths. Had Sophie’s tears dried away like the rain? Had she woken up that morning with the same sense of it being a brand new day, or was that just me?

  She was probably too close to what had happened. I was looking at everything through an observer’s eyes. It wasn’t my parents who were gone. It wasn’t my life that had nearly ended the night before. No, I had just witnessed it. I had been shown how fragile life really is, especially when the person in question doesn’t want to live.

  I wanted to live. I’d never really put much thought into my death before. I mean, I had a lot of future to get through until that became something which needed serious attention. At least, that’s what I’d always hoped. That was it, though. That was as much as I’d ever thought about it. I’d kind of just put it on my “to think about later” list.

  Sophie had brought the issue to the front of my mind, though. She had wanted to die. She had wanted to end the procession of sparkly or stormy mornings that were set out before her. She’d wanted it all to stop. I didn’t want that. I’d never really realized before that I didn’t want that. In fact, there had been occasions when I had thought it might be great to get to sleep forever, but I’d never thought about the reality behind it. The cold reality that once you go, you can’t come back.

  I wanted to know how Sophie was. I’d woken up that morning with her being the first thing on my mind. It was strange. I’d always known that Sophie was a puzzle. I’d always known that she was made out of sharp pieces that were hard to fit together without cutting yourself, but I’d never been able to make out the picture before. It was like the only pieces she ever showed were all sky, and I have no idea whether there was a forest or a city underneath. That was changing though. The small bits of information I’d gotten over the last day had filled her picture in to the point where I could almost understand why she did the things she did.

  I could almost understand why she had made my life hell. Her life had been hell. Her father had been an alcoholic and, judging from what had happened, a violent one.

  Had he ever hurt her? Had he ever hurt his daughter? The thought sent an icy cold slither down my spine and goose bumps up to the surface of my skin. If only I had known that it was happening.

  No. What would I have done really? I was just a kid. I guess I could have understood, though. I could have understood and to a certain degree, I could have accepted it.

  I couldn’t go back and change things, though. I couldn’t go back and smile at her, when I walked past her down the hallways. I couldn’t go up to her when she was eating alone and try to introduce myself. I couldn’t do anything of the things I might have done and I think that’s what hurt me the most of all. It was the fact that I was there. It was the fact that I saw her breaking into the sharp pieces that made up her puzzle. It was the fact that I could have done something; I would have done something, if only I had known.

  This wasn’t even about me, though. It was about Sophie. It was about the girl who had lost her parents and her will to live. I looked around at my side of the dorm room. There was still broken glass glinting on the floor from Sophie’s freak-out the night before, but I wasn’t going to spend my day trying to clean it up.

  I managed to scout out a pair of jeans and a hoody on the floor. I scooped them up and shook them hard, so any glass could fall to the floor and I could put them on safely. Dillan was still sleeping. He’d been out when I’d back the night before. The smell of stale beer lingered with every breath her blew out of his half-open mouth. My eyes rolled. That was just typical Dillan. He couldn’t address his problems without a bottle in his hand.

  I headed out the door. I wanted to see Sophie. I wanted to make sure that she’d managed the night after I’d left her.

  It didn’t take me long to walk across the quad and the door to Sophie’s dorm building had been wedged open with a bright yellow stiletto, which obviously belonged to one of the girls in the building. I walked into the building and looked at the long row of doors which lined the first floor hallway. I hadn’t thought about that. I hadn’t thought about the fact that I didn’t actually know which door was hers.

  It didn’t matter though. I had to make sure that she was okay. I walked up the first door and knocked. I knew that it wouldn’t be Sophie. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that I would find her on my first try.

  “Hi,” a big friendly smile appeared from behind the door. “Did you find your friend last night?” she asked, as I took in the freckles that seemed scattered across her face like stars in the sky. I could see genuine concern, in her eyes and I couldn’t help but like her because of that. She was clearly a nice girl with a good heart. It was just a shame that her friends seemed like such douchebags.

  “Sure,” I said with a quick nod. “She was pretty upset, but I think we talked it out.”

  “Are you looking for her now?” she asked curiously, as she peered down the hall and I wondered whether that meant that Sophie’s room was on that floor.

  I nodded and pushed my hands into my pockets. “Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that she’s okay, after everything that happened.”

  “I get that,” she looked back down the hall. “She stays in room six.”

  “Thanks, I really mean that.”

  She shrugged at me, as though it was no big deal. “You clearly aren’t trying to murder her. You care, so it’s the right thing to do.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel any less gratitude.”

  I said my goodbyes and walked down the hall to the room marked with a silver number six. I stopped in front of
the door and went to knock, but found my hand suspended in the air instead. I noticed a dry feeling at the back of my throat, as I swallowed, hard.

  Finally I managed to animate my hand and it made contact. There was a long pause, and then I heard sounds of someone moving in the room.

  “What are you doing here?” Sophie asked with a disturbed look, when she opened the door and found that it was me.

  “I thought I’d make sure you’re doing okay,” I said, as my hand found its way back into my jeans pocket. “Things were pretty crazy last night. I thought you might need a friend or whatever.”

  “You think I need a friend?” she snorted. “Um, no, I’m all right. Thanks for stopping by, though,” she added, as if dismissing a salesman or a missionary, as she started to close the door on my face.

  My phone started to vibrate against my leg. I thought about putting my hand out and stopping Sophie from closing the door, but the ringtone started to play and my desperation turned to making it stop. It was a ringtone that my girlfriend had set for herself. It was some lovey, dovey boyband ballad about love which would last until the end of time. I noticed Sophie smirking at me before the door closed and I found myself with only the issue of the phone to solve.

  I pulled my cell out of my pocket and answered it. “Jessica,” I said quickly with, as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

  “Oh babe,” she cooed to me. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. I miss you. When are you coming home?” her voice was light, but there was an annoying melodic element to it, which kind of made me feel as though she was wrapping me up in plastic so that I couldn’t move or breath.

  “I won’t be home before the holidays,” I said with a sigh, which was more for show than to express anything I really felt. “I’ve only been gone a few weeks, though, so you need to keep your chin up.”

  “I can’t wait until the holidays to see you,” she whined. “I want to see you sooner than that.”

  “There isn’t much I can do about that. I’ve got classes. I can’t just ditch college and come back home, whenever you’re missing me.”

  “Don’t you want to see me?” she whimpered and I could feel tears coming on the horizon. Her whimpers often turned to stormy clouds. “Don’t you miss me?”

  “Of course I want to see you and I’m looking forward to the holidays. I just don’t see the point in getting upset over something which we can’t change. I miss you every day. I think about you all the time, but I’m not going to spend my entire college experience missing you. I’ve got to concentrate on what’s happening here, you know?”

  She didn’t speak straight away. I couldn’t tell whether I’d upset her more or just simply made her think. “If I were you, then I’d be trying to find every chance I could to come home,” she said carefully, as though by her saying if it were her, I couldn’t be annoyed at whatever followed.

  “I am taking every chance, Jessica,” I said.

  I heard the door behind me opening and I turned to see Sophie looking at me.

  “What are you still doing here?” she asked with a sour look on her face. “I thought I told you to go.”

  “Who is that?” Jessica demanded. “Who is that girl talking to you?”

  “Jessica, calm down. It’s just a friend from college.”

  “I’m not your friend,” Sophie said, as she crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow in my direction. I could see an amused fleck in her eyes, which told me that she was enjoying the awkward position she’d just put me in.

  “Why is she saying she isn’t your friend? Who is she, Jason?”

  “She’s just a girl from college that I was checking in with. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Can you please just calm down? You’re giving me a headache.”

  “I’m giving you a headache?” Jessica snapped. “You’re refusing to come home. You’re with strange girls who I don’t know. What am I meant to think, Jason? How do you think I’m going to feel, when I hear other girls talking to you? How do you think I’m going to feel when you’re miles away from me and it’s all through your choice?”

  “I’m not doing this now,” I told her firmly, turning partly away from Sophie. “I refuse to have this conversation with you over the phone. We talked about what it meant for me to move away for college. You said you supported me. You said that you trusted me. Now you have to stand by your word.”

  “And if I don’t?” she challenged me.

  “When a relationship doesn’t have trust, it means that it’s broken. We’re got no hope of fixing anything when we’re so far apart, so that just leaves throwing it away. Is that really what you want? Do you want to throw us away?”

  CHAPTER 2

  I’m not sure what I had been expecting, when I’d gone over to see Sophie. I suppose at the very least, I expected some gratitude. I’d helped save her life. I’d pulled her away from the edge. She’d kissed me.

  And, on top of that, she’d broken the magical connection between me and my girlfriend. She’d walked into my life and she’d changed everything without even trying. Why hadn’t she shown me some gratitude? Why hadn’t she been happier to see me?

  A rapid, sharp knock broke through my thoughts. I looked at Dillan, who was sitting on his bed. He shrugged, which meant he didn’t know who it was and he wasn’t getting up to answer it. I rolled my eyes at him. He wasn’t looking at me, but I was sure that I’d rolled them loud enough for him to hear.

  I stood up. The floor had stopped crunching beneath my feet once I’d swept and re-swept the broken glass away, but otherwise the room was still in a state of disarray.

  I pulled open the door. I don’t know who I was expecting. I think, in some small way, I’d been expecting Sophie to be standing there with an apology hanging from her lips, but it wasn’t Sophie. It wasn’t even one of the guys who lived in the dorm.

  It was Jessica. She smiled. Her soft pink lips turned up, as they pulled down at the dimples in her cheeks. “Hey babe,” she said, as she pushed her way into my room.

  Her face quickly fell. Her dark brown eyebrows, pulled together and she turned back to me with a frown on her face. “Don’t you guys clean up around here?” she asked with her hand rising up and settling on her hip.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, when I’d managed to recover from the shock enough to close the door. “I mean,” I added quickly. “It’s great to see you, but you never said you were coming to visit.”

  “You never gave me a chance to,” she pouted. “I told you on the phone that I missed you. You said that you couldn’t come home, so I thought I’d come out to see you,” she shrugged. “Aren’t you glad that I’m here babe? Haven’t you missed me?” Her bright blue eyes narrowed at mine, as though she was trying to reach my mind and inventory my thoughts before I could hide them from her.

  Jessica had pretty eyes. Her eyes were one of the first things I’d noticed about her. They were a sparkling, clear ocean blue. It wasn’t until you got close to them that you realized how little depth they had to them. Looking into her eyes made you feel as though you’d spent your entire life searching for the ocean, only to find that in the end, it’s a puddle. They were pretty, though. No one could take that away from her.

  “Of course I’m glad to see you,” I forced out, because it was a lie and lies were not something which came easily to me. “I just wish you’d called first.” That part I meant.

  “It wouldn’t have been a surprise if I called first,” she said with her pout starting to re-inflate. “I can just go if you don’t want me here,” she kicked at the ground with her little black shoe.

  I could feel Dillan’s eyes on me. He hadn’t said anything since Jessica had walked into the room. I think he was enjoying the drama she’d brought. I think he was enjoying watching my life get messy for once.

  I walked over to Jessica and pulled her close to me. Her body was stiff in my arms, but her head found its place against my chest and I knew that the tiger was turning into nothing more than an angr
y kitten. “It’s good to see you,” I said into her hair, before I kissed her gently on the top of her head. “It feels like forever.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” she said happily, as she stepped back from my embrace. “Are you his roommate?” she turned to Dillan without any warning.

  “Sure,” he said quickly. I could see the surprise in his eyes over how quickly the conversation had turned and I shrugged when he looked at me for an explanation. “I’m Dillan,” he added, as he held out his hand, so that Jessica could shake it.

  She looked down at his hand and then back to his face. “I don’t touch people that I don’t know.”

  “Fair enough,” he dropped his hand back down to his leg. “So, how long are you here for?” he asked and I could hear in his tone that he already wanted her gone. “I’m sure you have your own college or something to attend to, right?”

  Jessica shook her head happily. Her hair, which was a few shades lighter than her eyebrows, brushed from side to side with her movement and caught the little lighting there was in the room. “I didn’t get into college.”

  “Sucks to be you,” Dillan said a little too quickly and I could feel the tension in the room getting kicked up a notch in real time.

  “Not really,” she said with such coolness that pneumonia became a real possibility. “I have a good job with good prospects. I’m earning money and you’re getting into debt. When you leave college, you’ll have no real workplace experience and I’ll already have four years. I think if anything is sucking, then it’s the student debts you’re going to leave this place with.”

  Dillan grinned at her, as he leaned forward and knitted his fingers together. “Is that what you think?” he asked in a leading kind of way.

  “That’s what I know,” Jessica told him firmly, because she hadn’t seen the wicked twinkling in his eyes which meant that he was about to burn her badly.

  “It’s just,” he said and then he paused. He looked happy. He looked like every word coming out of his mouth was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. “It’s just that I’m on a scholarship and I’m already being recruited to turn pro when I finish here. So, you know. No. No student loans.” He watched, as her cheeks starting to burn and all the coldness from her previous statement was boiled away. “I guess it sucks to be you, after all.”